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FROM SHARK FINNING to SHARK FISHING: a Provided by Duke Law Scholarship Repository STRATEGY for the U.S Iloulian - For Publication (Do Not Delete) 6/22/2017 11:48 AM View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE FROM SHARK FINNING TO SHARK FISHING: A provided by Duke Law Scholarship Repository STRATEGY FOR THE U.S. & EU TO COMBAT SHARK FINNING IN CHINA & HONG KONG JEREMY ILOULIAN† ABSTRACT Globally, the shark population is under extreme stress, primarily due to the rise of China and a growing middle class with a taste for a cultural dish: shark fin soup.1 Sharks play an important ecologic role and can be extremely beneficial to the local economy. They can also be an important food source for people if harvested sustainably and not in a manner that challenges the morality of humans’ relationship with the ocean; something the current shark finning practices do. Approaches to sustainable shark fishing at the international and domestic level have met some success. Even so, China and Hong Kong have become major markets for shark fins. Because of economic prowess and experience in shark finning regulatory schemes, the U.S. and EU are in a unique position to induce China to draft a similar set of rules and policies through a series of incentives. These rules would look similar to the ones in the U.S. and EU and would ban shark finning, only allowing the landings of fully intact sharks. This strategy could provide much needed relief to global shark populations. While challenges to implement this may arise from Hong Kong, the WTO and Japan, there are still pathways to successful implementation. I. BACKGROUND The problems of shark finning are deeply rooted within humanity’s complex relationship with sharks. It is hard to think of a Copyright © 2017 Jeremy Iloulian. † Duke University School of Law, J.D. expected 2018; the George Washington University, B.A. cum laude 2013. I would like to thank the editors of the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Forum for their assistance in preparing this publication. I would also like to thank Mr. Howard Hill, Mrs. Christine Hill, Mr. Thomas Koulentes and my parents, Nader and Laura, for inspiring my dedication to ocean conservation. 1. Caty Fairclough, Shark Finning: Sharks Turn Prey, SMITHSONIAN NAT’L MUSEUM OF NAT. HIST., http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-news/shark-finning-sharks-turned-prey (last visited Nov. 29, 2016). 345 Iloulian - For Publication (Do Not Delete) 6/22/2017 11:48 AM 346 DUKE ENVIRONMENTAL LAW & POLICY FORUM [Vol. XXVII:345 shark without imagining a fin moving above the water and hearing the music from Jaws.2 Younger generations may associate sharks with a video of a dare defying breach from the water during Discovery Channel’s Shark Week3 or a made-for-TV movie about a “shark- tornado.”4 Even though these animals inspire terror,5 the shark population should fear humans, not the other way around. Shark finning carried out by humans is the primary reason for the death of up to 273 million sharks per year.6 Shark fishing is not a new phenomenon7 and sharks have been killed as a result of fishing by-catch for decades.8 The problem at hand is the uptick in shark finning globally due to the rise of China.9 Shark finning occurs when a fisherman catches a shark and slices off the shark’s fin, taking the fin back to the market to sell and dumping the shark’s body in the ocean, often when the shark is still alive.10 The main economic incentive for shark finning comes from China where shark fins are used predominately in the popular “shark fin soup.”11 Shark fin soup is considered a delicacy in Chinese culture.12 Chinese Emperors used to favor it in their dishes, creating the sense of luxury that surrounds the dish.13 Now it is commonly found at “weddings, corporate celebrations and high-falutin’ business lunches to demonstrate a host’s good fortune.”14 2. Jaws, INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073195/?ref_=nv _sr_1 (last visited Nov. 29, 2016). 3. Air Jaws Apocalypse, INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt233 4250/ (last visited Nov. 29, 2016). 4. Sharknado, INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2724064/?ref _=nv_sr_2 (last visited Nov. 29, 2016). 5. Chris Jackson, Sharks: Half (51%) of Americans are Absolutely Terrified of Them and Many (38%) Scared to Swim in the Ocean Because of Them . , IPSOS (Jul. 7, 2015), https://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=6911. 6. Boris Worm, Global catches, exploitation rates, and rebuilding options for sharks, 40 MARINE POL’Y 194, 197 (2013). Even though shark fin soup is reducing in popularity, the sheer number of sharks being consumed is still a problem even if the number is reduced. 7. Jessica Spiegel, Even Jaws Deserves to Keep His Fins: Outlawing Shark Finning Throughout Global Waters, 24 B.C. INT’L & COMP L. REV. 409, 411 (2001). 8. David Shiffman, Sharks, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, http://oce an.si.edu/sharks (last visited Nov. 29, 2016). 9. Fairclough, supra note 1. 10. Id. 11. Krista Mahr, Shark-Fin Soup and the Conservation Challenge, TIME (Aug. 9, 2010), http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2021071,00.html. 12. Id. 13. Id. 14. Id. Iloulian - For Publication (Do Not Delete) 6/22/2017 11:48 AM Spring 2017] FROM SHARK FINNING TO SHARK FISHING 347 A. Shark Economics: Benefits to People The destruction of the global shark populations is an economic, ecologic, medical and moral issue. To begin, shark finning is an inefficient economic use of sharks. From a food perspective, shark finning is an enormous waste. Over 95% of the actual shark meat is wasted with shark finning because only the fins are kept due to their status as a delicacy and the rest of the shark is thrown back into the ocean.15 To put that in perspective, for each one person fed by a shark fin, nineteen additional people could be fed. For a country like China with 1.37 billion people, that is a massive waste of a valuable product.16 Additionally, sharks in recent years have been a large source of eco-tourism. Shark diving and shark watching have become popular activities for travelers. South Africa boasts of its opportunity to cage dive with great white sharks17 and Mexico encourages tourists to snorkel with whale sharks.18 A recent study looked at 83 different shark related tourism activities in 29 countries and examined the economic benefits.19 In some locations, like a small area of the Maldives, shark ecotourism provided $2.3 million in economic benefits to the local community.20 The economic figures are also deceptively low because it is limited to a very small location.21 Adding together the smaller geographic locations, the total economic benefit is quite substantial for an entire country, like the Bahamas, which had $78 million in benefits.22 Furthermore, the loss of sharks hurts the ecotourism sector in countries that need the most economic help. A 2011 report identified 84 different locations as having shark ecotourism economies and 67% of those locations were in developing countries.23 Globally there is about $314 15. Matthew Schonfeld, Everything You Need To Know About Eating Shark, FIRST WE FEAST (Aug. 5, 2013), http://firstwefeast.com/eat/everything-you-need-to-know-about-eating- shark/. 16. The World Factbook: CHINA, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, https://www.cia.gov/ library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html (last visited Jan. 12, 2017). 17. Brian McFarlane, Great White Shark Tours, SHARK CAGE DIVING, http://www.shark cagediving.net/ (last visited Nov. 29, 2016). 18. Whale Shark Safari, PRO DIVE MEXICO, https://prodivemex.com/excursion/whale-shark- safari/ (last visited May 9, 2017). 19. Ecotourism: Dollars and Sense, SHARK SAVERS, http://www.sharksavers.org/en/educ ation/the-value-of-sharks/sharks-and-ecotourism/ (last visited May 9, 2017). 20. Austin J. Gallagher & Neil Hammerschlag, Global Shark Currency: The Distribution, Frequency, and Economic Value of Shark Ecotourism, 14.8 Current Issues in Tourism 1, 11–12 (2011). 21. See id. at 11. 22. Id. at 12. 23. Id. at 4–5. Iloulian - For Publication (Do Not Delete) 6/22/2017 11:48 AM 348 DUKE ENVIRONMENTAL LAW & POLICY FORUM [Vol. XXVII:345 million dollars generated worldwide by shark ecotourism, a figure, expected to double within the next twenty years.24 This is a substantial amount of revenue and it could help economic development in countries that need it most. Sharks largest economic impact is their status as an apex predator and the ecological role that they fill. Sharks are apex predators in the ecosystems they inhabit.25 Apex predators are the animals at the top of the food chain and indirectly control the ecological balance of the food web.26 Sharks will consume mid-level predators such as rays and thus prevent over predation of smaller fish or shellfish by the mid-level predators.27 Since the diets of sharks vary drastically, they will not pick a specific species to exclusively prey on, thus keeping populations even across all species one level lower on the food chain and ensuring diversity.28 An example of this ecological harmony is in the North Atlantic. When blacktip shark populations were strong, so were North Carolina scallops because the sharks kept the population of the scallops’ predator, the cownose ray, in check.29 Yet, once blacktip shark populations plummeted, cownose ray populations surged and the scallop fishery almost collapsed.30 A similar situation occurred in Alaska when the seal population the sharks used to feed on ate much of the herring.31 Regardless of which ecosystem sharks inhabit, they are a keystone species that regulates the fishery populations.
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